Lunokhod

Lunokhod (Russian: Луноход, IPA: [lʊnɐˈxot], “Moonwalker”) was a series of Soviet robotic lunar rovers designed to land on the Moon between 1969 and 1977. Lunokhod 1 was the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on an extraterrestrial body.

The 1969 Lunokhod 1A (Lunokhod 0, Lunokhod No. 201) was destroyed during launch, the 1970 Lunokhod 1 and the 1973 Lunokhod 2 landed on the Moon, and Lunokhod 3 (Lunokhod No. 205, planned for 1977) was never launched. The successful missions were in operation concurrently with the Zond and Luna series of Moon flyby, orbiter and landing missions.

The Lunokhods were primarily designed to support the Soviet human Moon missions during the Moon race. Instead, they were used as remote-controlled robots for exploration of the lunar surface and return its pictures after the Apollo human lunar landings and cancellation of the Soviet human Moon programme.

The Lunokhods were transported to the lunar surface by Luna spacecraft, which were launched by Proton-K rockets. The Moon lander part of the Luna spacecraft for Lunokhods was similar to the one for sample-return missions. The Lunokhods were designed under the leadership of Georgy Babakin at Lavochkin design bureau. The metal chassis themselves were designed by Alexander Kemurdzhian.

Not until the 1997 Mars Pathfinder was another remote-controlled vehicle put on an extraterrestrial body. In 2010, nearly forty years after the 1971 loss of signal from Lunokhod 1, the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed its tracks and final location, and researchers, using a telescopic pulsed-laser rangefinder, detected the robot’s retroreflector.